I think I'm correct in saying that the current GP2 teams are locked in for 2013 (Coloni excepted), after which they all have to sign new contracts? So any team that joined next year would only be guaranteed a spot for one season, after which they run the risk of losing it, which might mean that prospective teams will not bother entering for 2013, and will instead wait to enter for 2014.

I think I'm correct in saying that the current GP2 teams are locked in for 2013 (Coloni excepted), after which they all have to sign new contracts? So any team that joined next year would only be guaranteed a spot for one season, after which they run the risk of losing it, which might mean that prospective teams will not bother entering for 2013, and will instead wait to enter for 2014.

Thanks, but I'm actually looking for confirmation on Marlon. I could not find any though while searching on google.

There will always be teams desperate enough to take them for the right incentives though, and I'm not holding out hope that Texeira will have the decency to give it up.

Alas you are completely correct. Teixeria has been bouncing from series to series for years being completely off the pace and hasn't got the message yet. It's not like it's his first season in mid-level Motorsport where he wants a fresh start elsewhere.

And for those who argue it's his money to waste, ultimately the poor talents with big wallets are the ones driving up the costs for everyone else. If they didn't spend so much, many of the struggling drivers would be able to afford to drive.

And Boullier has apparently contributed some investment in Evans. Interesting, given that Gravity already have Stanaway on their books.

Meanwhile, Quaife-Hobbs is testing with Arden and Addax. If he thinks that he can raise a budget for GP2 then I'm not sure why he moved to Auto GP - unless he thought he couldn't risk a third go at GP3 without winning the title and thought he needed to get one on his CV from somewhere. Which, thinking about it, is very plausible.

If you're talking money, €20,000 for winning a round (€10,000 for 2nd, €5,000 for 3rd) - I'm not sure how much the prize for winning the championship, but I think it's about €100,000. So it's not insignificant, but it's not enough to buy a drive in GP2 - as a driver you just have to hope that your success attracts sponsors.

I think Esteban Gurrieri will be doing a GP2 simulator session, as he tweeted: "Felicitaciones #Misil por la victoria!! Voy a esforzarme en el simu GP2 para intentar cortar con tu seguidilla..jajaj. abzo @rossimatias" Not sure where he'll be doing it, don't know why or if he would want to move from Indy Lights to GP2 at the age of 28.

Another rumour for Coloni's replacement: Team Meritus (also known as "the other Malaysian team") might be looking to enter, having failed in their previous bid to replace Super Nova. Other rumours:

Marcus Ericsson to Addax to partner Johnny Cecotto Jr.
Felipe Nasr to ART replacing James Calado (who does not have the budget to remain in GP2 next season)
Aaro Vainio promoted to ART to partner Felipe Nasr (as Vainio is managed by Nicolas Todt)

Madness.

Worth noting that the GP2 ceremony is today, so Valsecchi will get his trophy, and the other drivers will be hob-nobbing with team managers!

So Facu Regalia seems to have a budget more or less in place (maybe courtesy of the Argentine government's sudden interest in F1, see Mar del Plata grand prix plans). If you asked me to guess, I'd think he would be at Racing Engineering.

Marcus Ericsson claims all the top teams want him! But it perhaps suggests he's leaving iSport.

Rio Haryanto will be testing in Barcelona. Given he claims that he has offers from Carlin, Rapax and DAMS, I assume he'll be testing with Rapax and DAMS. I had heard he wanted to stay based in the UK, which would make Carlin the logical choice.

Abt might 'do a Bottas' and skip competing in GP2 to become Williams test driver, if Bottas gets promoted to a race seat. If he goes to GP2, ART is the most likely destination.

Also, Jardar Varhaug (father of the self-style Norwegian Schumacher Pål Varhaug) says GP2 is the plan for next season as long as they can interest American investors, and there are lots of interested teams (who clearly have short memories and don't remember his previous season in GP2).

HistoryFan - Evans is only confirmed to be testing for Arden I think, not DAMS.

The 'great interest' in Ericsson probably stems from the fact that most drivers with similar experience will be moving on and he might be able to do a Valsecchi. I think Formula 1 stopped caring a couple of years back so I can't really see what he is going to achieve from that though.

But let's face it, in most of the cases where there is 'great interest' the interest is in the ability to pay.

For some reason my network thinks the link about Abt is a high risk site so I can't read it and judge, but my first thought was "really?". He's good, but he's not *that* good in my opinion. Not yet, anyway. Sitting out of racing in anger for a year doesn't seem like a logical way to learn and improve as a driver. Mind you, I didn't think it was a good idea for Bottas either but at least he had more experience than Abt in both the feeder categories and working with the F1 team.

The only way I can see that being true is if Williams need his sponsorship - he seemed to be pretty well funded compared to his rivals in GP3.

Also, Jardar Varhaug (father of the self-style Norwegian Schumacher Pål Varhaug) says GP2 is the plan for next season as long as they can interest American investors, and there are lots of interested teams (who clearly have short memories and don't remember his previous season in GP2).

Well, as a Norwegian, I don't think Pål deserves a second chance in GP2, however, all the teams he have been in, has praised his technical knowledge, and ability to give very good feedback. That might be a thing that is in some interest among the slower teams.

Well, as a Norwegian, I don't think Pål deserves a second chance in GP2, however, all the teams he have been in, has praised his technical knowledge, and ability to give very good feedback. That might be a thing that is in some interest among the slower teams.

He did better in Auto GP this year, though Auto GP is a weaker series. He's still young, only 21, so it would be a shame that his career was ended by one (admittedly) bad season in GP2, when drivers like Jolyon Palmer and Rodolfo Gonzalez get to come back. That said, I don't see him ever making it to F1, so there's the argument that if he gets a seat he's denying a better driver a seat, but the likes of Serenelli and Teixeira have more to answer for on that front.

Interestingly Luciano Bacheta has picked up a new sponsor, Robust Energy Drink. Probably not enough to buy a GP2 seat for him, but positive moves. Also, Scott Malvern's been doing GP3 simulations in McLaren's simulator, so he might be off there next year.

The 'great interest' in Ericsson probably stems from the fact that most drivers with similar experience will be moving on and he might be able to do a Valsecchi. I think Formula 1 stopped caring a couple of years back so I can't really see what he is going to achieve from that though.

Ericsson is 22, birthday a month ago. So a "couple years back" he was 19, and if you haven't won GP2 or equivalent by then your career is over? Lucky for Schumacher that rule wasn't in place back in the 90s.

He is probably not the next WDC, but he was good in the latter part of the season and actually outscored everyone the last six races after a really crappy start to the season. It would probably have been better for his reputation (atleast on this board) to fart around in a lower series a couple of years until he was prepared and experienced but he moved very early to GP2 and he's probably a better driver for it. Just has to live with the "too old" stigma.

I still (talked about this before) find it fascinating that motorsport is about the only sport where you are not "allowed" to train and become better over time. If you are the best driver your fourth year in a series you somehow cheated and it doesn't really count...

Ericsson is 22, birthday a month ago. So a "couple years back" he was 19, and if you haven't won GP2 or equivalent by then your career is over? Lucky for Schumacher that rule wasn't in place back in the 90s.

He is probably not the next WDC, but he was good in the latter part of the season and actually outscored everyone the last six races after a really crappy start to the season. It would probably have been better for his reputation (atleast on this board) to fart around in a lower series a couple of years until he was prepared and experienced but he moved very early to GP2 and he's probably a better driver for it. Just has to live with the "too old" stigma.

I still (talked about this before) find it fascinating that motorsport is about the only sport where you are not "allowed" to train and become better over time. If you are the best driver your fourth year in a series you somehow cheated and it doesn't really count...

He didn't have to win it by then but he was probably expected to do better than 17th.

There's a difference between training and improving, and hanging around until everyone better has moved on. It can be a fine line calling between the two and maybe sometimes it is a bit unfair, but then life is unfair. Maybe it would have helped Marcus to take things a bit slower, maybe it wouldn't. Either way it's all academic.

I absolutely agree with Henrik B on this matter. I found it amazing how drivers who perform well after for example 3 seasons get criticized for this. But people forget that we are talking about very young drivers and some need more time to mature and become better. Just like in real life, some people need more time to mature. Of course it is obvious that a driver winning in his 1st season or at a very young age is a hot prospect but my opinion is that any driver winning a title or winning races at GP2 level is ready for F1, no matter if that took him 3 years, when he is winning a title or several races, then he is mature and at that point in his carreer ready for the next step. I guess it's a sign of the times that people expect immediate results and that people don't have patience anymore, that goes for F1 too. In the 1980's drivers had the chance to grow over several seasons but that's unthinkable nowadays, people want immediate performance. Look at what happened to Alguersuari at Toro Rosso: the youngest driver to start a F1 race and excellent progression over the next 2 seasons but still he got dropped, although he was still very young (looks like he could make a comeback next year).

The people who get criticised for only winning after a while have a small problem. Their pre series-whatever CV's are really weak. Maldonado had a good pre-GP2 CV, so did Pantano. If anything it was strange it took them so long. Perez and Valsecchi? Meh.

My Portuguese isn't great (and google translate hasn't helped much either), but he's either definitely leaving DAMS, or he's weighing up options, one of which is Nasr.

GP2 Series official twitter account says there's a driver announcement on the way. Maybe a coincidence, but Stockinger and Fumanelli both say they will soon have announcements. More probably Evans to Arden, Nasr to ART, or Haryanto to Rapax or DAMS.

EDIT: Okay, from twitter it seems that it translates as him saying he won't be at DAMS. So ART? Worth remembering he has plenty of funding from Banco do Brasil.

EDIT2: And the rumour is that Daniel Juncadella will test for Rapax (maybe as well as Addax?) - announcement due after Macau.

The people who get criticised for only winning after a while have a small problem. Their pre series-whatever CV's are really weak. Maldonado had a good pre-GP2 CV, so did Pantano. If anything it was strange it took them so long. Perez and Valsecchi? Meh.

Ericsson does have a good pre-GP2 CV though. He won the Japanese F3 championship and dominated in his British F3 appearances that year. He was then mighty in the GP2 testing, but that pace seemed to vanish when the actual competition started. It seems it has taken him a while to get comfortable in GP2 for some reason.

So Facu Regalia seems to have a budget more or less in place (maybe courtesy of the Argentine government's sudden interest in F1, see Mar del Plata grand prix plans). If you asked me to guess, I'd think he would be at Racing Engineering.

Nah, he's sponsored by his dad's company, Varlion, and some private companies from Spain. The Argentine government is not giving money to a race car driver any time soon, only Guerrieri could a have a small chance to get (probably indirect) state support to race Indy Cars.

I quite rated Ericsson in 2009 but I can't see an argument to suggest that he's been anything other than disappointing overall in his three years of GP2.

Stockinger's news is that he will be testing in Formula Renault 3.5 - just announced.

And I don't think it will be Fumanelli either. I reckon he's got more potential than the points showed in GP3, but spending so much on GP2 now doesn't make sense after coming in so far behind his teammates this year. Not that that stopped Trummer, mind you - although he was rather light on the potential front too.

I suppose the announcement could be about Nasr given all the chat about him leaving DAMS recently, but I'm rather expecting to be underwhelmed. So Regalia it is, then.